The Frieze founders’ restaurant at 180 The Strand, a Brutalist ground floor warmed with timber, leather and art.
Restaurant, Westminster, UK
Toklas opened in late 2021 on the ground floor of 180 The Strand, Sir Frederick Gibberd’s Brutalist block above Temple. It is run by Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, who founded Frieze, and pairs a Mediterranean restaurant and bar with a bakery round the corner on Surrey Street and a terrace for around 80, planted by Miria Harris.
Stafford Schmool kept the concrete pillars and walls and warmed them with reclaimed parquet, green leather banquettes and iroko tables, lit by pendants he based on a 1960s design. Børge Mogensen’s paper-cord chairs fill the room, a 1993 Wolfgang Tillmans photograph of tomatoes and aubergines hangs in the dining room, and the bar is papered with posters from fifty years of exhibitions. What makes it stand out is the eye behind it: it feels run by people from the art world without ever looking like a gallery.
Information
Address
1 Surrey Street
London
WC2R 2ND